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Big Sur

"Big Sur's a humane, precise account of the extraordinary ravages of alcohol delirium tremens on Kerouac, a superior novelist who had strength to complete his poetic narrative, a task few scribes so afflicted have accomplished...others crack up. Here we meet San Francisco's poets and recognize hero Dean Moriarty 10 years after On the Road. Jack Kerouac was a 'writer,' as his great peer W.S. Burroughs says, and here at the peak of his suffering humorous genius he wrote through his misery to end with 'Sea,' a brilliant poem appended, on the hallucinatory sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur." - Allen Ginsberg

On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition

Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "beat" and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that "set them free".

On the Road: The Original Scroll

Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951 that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him. Typed out as one long, single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper that he later taped together to form a 120-foot scroll, this document is among the most significant, celebrated, and provocative artifacts in contemporary American literary history.

Wake Up

Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first time in audiobook form, Wake Up is Kerouac's retelling of the life of Prince Siddartha Gotama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong searchfor Enlightenment. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a penetrating account of the Buddha's life and a concise primer on the principal teachings of Buddhism.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks

More than 60 years ago, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, two novice writers at the dawn of their careers, sat down to write a novel about the summer of 1944, when one of their friends killed another in a moment of brutal and tragic bloodshed. Alternating chapters, they pieced together a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and obsession, art and violence.

Walden: Life in the Woods

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the 20th century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangiers, and, ultimately, a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone.

Tristessa

In 1955, novelist Jack Kerouac detoured from his cross-country American travels to Mexico City, where a group of junkie expatriates he had known from the New York City post-war scene had gone for the cheap and plentiful supply of heroin and morphine. Fellow beat writer William S. Burroughs, who had been a part of the Mexican expatriate community, had introduced Kerouac to Bill Garver (named Old Bull Gaines in the novel), a much-older, long-term addict who had in turn introduced Kerouac to Esperanza Villanueva, whom Kerouac named Tristessa in the novel.

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman - Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual

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Ham on Rye: A Novel

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Sometimes a Great Notion

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This thought-provoking journal of a man's quest for truth - and for himself - has touched and changed an entire generation, and is ready to reach out to a new one. At its heart, the story is all too simple: a man and his son take a motorcycle trip across America. But this is not a simple trip at all, for around every corner, their pilgrimage leads them to new vistas of self-discovery and renewal.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

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Post Office: A Novel

"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than 12 years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.

Junky

Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures, and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. Through time spent kicking and time spent dealing, through junk sickness and a sanatorium, Junky is a field report from the American post-war drug underground. It has influenced generations of writers with its raw, sparse and unapologetic tone.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

In Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (inspired by a friend of Thompson) are quickly diverted to search for the American dream. Their quest is fueled by nearly every drug imaginable and quickly becomes a surreal experience that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. But there is more to this hilarious tale than reckless behavior, for underneath the hallucinogenic facade is a stinging criticism of American greed and consumerism.

My First Summer in the Sierra

It was June of 1869 when John Muir reluctantly accepted a job herding sheep from the central valley of California to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers, high into the Sierra Nevadas and deep into the Yosemite region. He felt ill equipped for the work, and yet the opportunity thrilled his adventurous spirit. With a notebook tied to his belt, he set out for a summer he would never forget. My First Summer in the Sierra is Muir’s classic account of that extraordinary journey.

The Monkey Wrench Gang

Ex-Green Beret George Hayduke has returned from war to find his beloved southwestern desert threatened by industrial development. Joining with Bronx exile and feminist saboteur Bonnie Abzug, wilderness guide and outcast Mormon Seldom Seen Smith, and libertarian billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., Hayduke is ready to fight the power - taking on the strip miners, clear-cutters, and the highway, dam, and bridge builders who are threatening the natural habitat.

Publisher's Summary

Two ebullient young men are engaged in a passionate search for dharma, or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen way, which takes them climbing into the high Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude - a lesson that has a hard time surviving their forays into the pagan groves of San Francisco's bohemia, with its marathon wine-drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, experiments in "yabyum", and other non-ascetic pastimes.

This autobiographical novel appeared just a year after the author's explosive On the Road put the Beat generation on the literary map and Kerouac on the best-seller lists. The same expansiveness, humor, and contagious zest for life that sparked the earlier novel ignites this one.

Ray meditates in the woods. Ray goes on a road trip. Ray sleeps in the train yard. Ray goes on a hike with his buddies. They talk a lot of pseudo eastern philosophy bull. They go back to a shack. Everyone gets drunk. Everyone gets laid. By the same Barbie nympho doll. Ray goes on a road trip. Ray sleeps in a train yard. Ray goes home and Momma cooks for him. Ray meditates in the woods. Ray goes on a road trip. Ray meets up with buddies. They talk a lot of pseudo eastern philosophy bull. They throw a party and get drunk. Several women show up and wish they could have sex with Ray's friend. Ray goes on a road trip. Then Ray climbs a mountain. More pseudo eastern philosophical BS. The end.

I get that this was very influential in 1958. That millions of young men thought this footloose lifestyle was some kind of statement about individualism and freedom. But boy, it just reads like BS today. And if you've read On the Road already, this is a pale duplicate only with eastern BS thrown in to try and make it mean something. Which it doesn't. It doesn't mean anything except Kerouac didn't like women or working.

Kerouac was a great writer. I wish he'd been a better man and given us better material. I am totally done with him now.

Sorry, but I struggled to get into this. I liked 'On the Road,' a lot, and this pretty much 'On The Road,' but with a Buddhist theme. You get a bunch of people talking about esoteric Buddist things that your average western would not know/care about. I think there are better Kerouak books out there unless you are already into Buddhism and understand some of this ahead of time. Narration was fine though.

What made the experience of listening to The Dharma Bums the most enjoyable?

Hearing someone else read one of most favorite books and how they read through passages versus how I did.

What did you like best about this story?

The free flowing and wanting to find "something" that continues from On the Road where they were just wanting to the experience that "something"

Any additional comments?

I recommend it, but that is coming from a Kerouac fanboy and an already lover of Dharma Bums. It is a great listen and a great story of a man finding himself. If you have never read/listened to this I suggest you give it a try!

I thought maybe there was something of substance to this book, but there was nothing of substance there.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jack Kerouac again?

I don't think so. The idea that he was some sort of guru or something is a sad notion that not even die hard aging hippies are likely to believe. He's just a guy who did some drugs and learned a little about an Eastern religion.

What does Tom Parker bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I'm not sure really. I suppose he did a decent job, but nothing jumps off the table and says "This is something special"

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Just disappointment at wasting my time. It happens now and then, you pick a book off the "Must read before I die" list and find out it really actually sucks.

Any additional comments?

I can't imagine why this book shows up in certain "Must Read" lists. Obviously nobody who puts these lists together has actually suffered through this dull book.

This is a great story from the 1950’s when you could hitchhike all across the country and sleep out in public spaces. Now there are no public spaces you can do that in legally because most are ‘privately owned’. With that aside I do like the story where you have three different views on what the Dharma is and how different people see it. I would liked to have read at the end an epilogue of where everyone was ten years from when the story ended. After reading it I can see that like the Tao, you can’t speak the Tao and have it be the true Tao the Dharma is the same as in it has a different meaning to everyone that practices it.

Oh, and I do like the part where the woman talks about the ‘police’ watching everything you do just because they can and 50 years after this book was published congress gave the ‘police’ just that authority.

The dialogue was a little difficult to follow between Jaffy and Ray at 1st. The parts when Ray is traveling and meeting different people is the best. it's a typical Kerouac novel, spontaneous and chaotic. At times you will be in pure story telling nirvana, at others you'll wonder what it wrong with Kerouac. It's worth the ride tho, just stick out your thumb.